r Soldiers

Junio Unit 3 : Les s on4

Jesus = truly God!

PURPOSE : For children to explore and begin to understand that Jesus was both
truly human and truly divine at the same time. The purpose for this lesson is to
look at how Jesus was divine and how God has made a way for us to be in a
right relationship with him.

‘‘Jesus is both truly God and truly human: he has both

God’s nature and our nature.’
‘We believe that in the person of Jesus Christ, the Divine and human natures are
united, so that he is truly and properly God and truly and properly man.’
Doctrine 4, The Salvation Army

Consider & Prepare

Read:
John 1:1–18
Philippians 2:5–8 (The Message)
Matthew 9:1–8
Luke 20:9–19
Having taught in the last lesson that Jesus was fully human, we now have to teach that he was also fully divine! This is why
the doctrine of the incarnation is hard to grasp even for many adult Christians or those learning about Christianity.
Throughout the Old Testament, Jesus had sent prophets and holy men to warn the Israelites that their relationship with
God was not right and they needed to seek God’s forgiveness and redemption. Sometimes the Israelites would pay atten-
tion for a little while, but then—invariably—they would spiritually ‘wander off ’ again.
Finally, God sent his own Son, Jesus, to warn them—believing that, surely, now they would listen—and they killed him.
Jesus captures this situation in a parable recorded in Luke 20.
So Jesus was not just another wise teacher or a rabbi or a prophet or a holy man, he was fully divine. This was indicated
clearly to the Jews whenever he forgived someone’s sin (e.g. Matthew 9:1–8). Only God could forgive sins. More than the
miracles or his teaching or his ethical stance, it was in this act that Jesus most revealed that he had the authority of God.
The children need to learn that while Jesus was fully human and felt what we feel and could suitably
represent humanity to God, he was also fully divine, possessing all the authority and power of God.
What you will need:
• Yummy foods, plates, serviettes and plastic disposable spoons or folks
• Paper, pens, pencils and Bibles
• Bandages, enough for five bandages per team
• Tub of bandaids
• Print of cards for the Junior Soldiers with the ‘Home & Beyond’ information
on them for each of the Junior Soldiers to place them in their notepad or
journal for this weeks challenge.

Connecting In
Oh that’s ‘divine’…

• Have a range of yummy food items available for a taste test, e.g. Heaven ice-creams, chocolate (of a good variety),
chocolate cake, mousse, ‘Divine’ yoghurt (if you can buy that brand locally)
• Cut or divide the food into enough portions so that each of the children can have a taste test (taking into consideration
any food allegies that might be present in the group; make sure you choose items that are safe so that everyone can
participate).
• Get the children to taste test each of the items that you have provided today using either a plastic spoon or fork.
• Get the children to rate the items out of ten on their own sheet of paper.
• When all the children have tasted and rated the items explore the following.

• Link: ‘We have been trying some very nice foods today, would you call any of them ‘divine’? This means that you feel
like you are in heaven when you are eating it.’ (These would usually be really rich or decadent foods.)
• ‘What did you rate the highest, why? Is there any food not here that you would describe as divine? ‘We are only look-
ing at food but I am sure there are some other things that you can think of that you would describe as being ‘divine’.
(‘This dress is divine’, ‘The way he kicks for goal is simply divine’, ‘That new fruit juice is divine’.)

The Main Thing

What is really divine?
We have been looking at some yummy foods that we might class as being ‘divine’. What other things might you refer to as
‘divine’? (Give the children time to make some suggestions here.)
The definition of ‘divine’ is: ‘Of, from or like God or a god; heavenly; godlike; celestial; supernatural; having the nature of or
being a deity (the essential nature or condition of being a god).’ (Might be good to write this up on a large sheet of butchers
paper or on a whiteboard as you continue your discussion)
Last time we met we spoke about one of the doctrines/beliefs of The Salvation Army. This doctrine stated: ‘We believe that
in the person of Jesus Christ the Divine and human natures are united, so that he is truly and properly God and truly and
properly man.’ We focused mainly on some of the aspects of Jesus that showed he was truly human. Well, today we are
going to look a little more at the aspects of Jesus that showed that he was also truly God. The word ‘divine’ is used in this
doctrine and helps to explain that Jesus had ‘divine nature’.
• So after talking about things that were divine and looking at the definition,
what do you think this means about Jesus?
Exploring Scripture ...
• Below is a list of passages.
• Get the children in small groups to find a certain passage, read it and then
decide ‘what they think the passage is showing about Jesus’ divine nature.
• Get each group to share their findings with everyone.

John 1:1–5 (Jesus was with God at the beginning of creation)

Matthew 8:23–27 (Jesus calms the storm—in charge of nature and powerful)
Mark 6:30–44 (Jesus feeds the 5,000)
Matthew 8:1–3 (Jesus heals someone)
John 11:38–44 (miracle—back from the dead)
Matthew 9:1–8 (forgives sins)

‘Jesus did things that normal people can’t do. Can you change the weather? Can you bring someone back from the dead?
You know, some magicians can do amazing tricks and, even in Jesus’ day, people accused Jesus of just doing tricks and fool-
ing people—but then he did something that only God could do: he forgave someone’s sins.’
‘Imagine if Tom did something bad to Jack, but then Michael came up to Tom and said, ‘It’s okay; I forgive you.’ Only Jack
can forgive someone for doing something bad to him.’
‘When we sin, we do something that offends God; only God can forgive us if we say ‘sorry’ to him. So how could Jesus for-
give someone’s sin against God? Hmm, maybe Jesus had the same authority and power as God!’
So Jesus was not just a wise teacher or a prophet or a holy man, he was divine. Only God could forgive sins.
And Jesus did these things while in human form. Last time we were together we blended our paper magiclay together
(it would be good if you had your example to remind the children) and saw that Jesus’ humanity and Jesus’ divinity were
united; they cannot be separated.
Philippians 2:5–8 (The Message will work best for this reading) will help to remind us of this. (Read this passage together.)
→ What do you like about these verses?
→ How does it help you to think about both the divine and human natures of Jesus?

Tying In
Wrap it—Mend it—Fix it …
For this activity you will need a variety of bandages, enough for each group to have approximately five each. You will also
need to have a list for each group of the things they need to mend, e.g. broken leg, broken arm, sprained ankle, tummy
wound, head injury, etc.
• Divide your group into at least two teams.
• Get the children to choose one person from their team to be the person that will be bandaged.
• With the five bandages that each group has, they will need to come to the front and find out which area they are to
bandage/fix first. They will need to come out the front five times and will only be given one area to look after at a
time.
• The winning group is the one that has finished first their wrapping and that the bandages are totally on the areas that
they have been asked to mend.

Link: We have been having some fun wrapping and mending and fixing. Jesus showed us how He was
able to fix things, heal things and restore things because of his ‘divine nature’—because He was God.
He healed people and did miracles but he also came to Earth so that he could die
for our sins—the wrong choices that we have made. He came so that our
relationship with God could be fixed; so our friendship could be restored.
In order to fix the world (restore our relationship with God) Jesus had to be God!

Prayer …
You will need a tub of bandaids for this prayer time.
Ask the children to all come and sit in a circle. Pass the tub of bandaids around so
that the children can take one. As they are taking a bandaid ask them to say either
a prayer of thank you to Jesus for restoring their relationship with God or a prayer
of praise for some of the wonderful and amazing things that he has done.

Home & Beyond

Print off the Home & Beyond cards attached. The children might like to keep these in their journal or notebook where they
could write or stick the challenges, reflect, answer questions or complete activities each week.

Bandaid challenge…
Encourage the children to take their bandaid home with them to remind them of what has been explored today.
It can remind us that Jesus is divine—and he showed us that in a number of ways when he was on Earth in human form—
and us remind us that Jesus came to mend our relationship with God.

• Use the bandaid to help you with prayer this week, thanking Jesus for making it possible for you to have a relationship
with God and to remind you to praise him for the amazing things he can do as God.
• The bandaid will also help to remind you to look for ways that you might see God working throughout your week, e.g.
reminding you of things, seeing people helping and caring for each other, in worship, in nature, etc.
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